Jeffry

I think I'd like to take a second to talk about my pappy, the late Jeffry Lynn Tjaden. As a lot of you who are probably reading this already know, he passed away in November of 2008, and sometimes I like to reminisce about him. Let me be clear first: My dad probably wouldn't have won any father of the year awards. Among other things he was a drunk, a womanizer, a general rabble rouser, and a duck hunt enthusiast(yeah, the NES game strangely enough). He was also a deeply misunderstood and highly intelligent man. Without knowing my dad for the first 22 years of my life I wouldn't be the man I am today, for better or for worse. In his own crude way, he taught me how to stick up for myself, and not to "BE SUCH A GODDAMN PUSSY!", so I definitely appreciate that. I think I may share a tale or two of some of his misadventures on this blog here. So, it begins.

One of my favorite Jeff Tjaden tales takes place during the summer of 2003. I was 17, and entering my senior year of high school. Things were lookin' alright for me. I was young, I had a car, and I had two jobs. Working part time at Fareway, the local grocery store, and also working part time at Appleby Canoe Rental, as a "dock dummy" as my father liked to call it. Basically I would spend weekend mornings or afternoons either unloading trailers of canoes down at the canoe launch point on the Maquoketa river, or spend them on the other end at Pictured Rocks loading the canoes when the legions of drunk scalawags would paddle in for the night. My dad was the one who helped me get the job. He was driving the shuttle bus for Appleby's. It was a job he loved, being the lady-lovin' fiend that he was. He liked to sit down there at Pictured Rocks and flirt with ladies who had one too many appletinis on the water that day. I think it made him feel young again, or something like that. He never really did want to grow up. Anyway, Dad worked down there for a couple of summers until he got his last OWI in 2002. So by 2003 he was full fledged "give up on life career drunk".  It was sort of sad, but it was just the way it was. You can say all you want about trying to get one of your loved ones help, or getting them clean, but it just didn't work like that with him. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink so to speak. Anyway, after all of this happened, he liked to spend his days swigging on cheap vodka or whatever sort of nasty swill he could get his hands on, and one day in that good ole summer of '03 pappy decided he was gonna go down the river by himself. A solo mission, if you will.

 It was late August. The last day of summer before school started. I was out cruising the streets one late afternoon/early evening  in my 1987 Chevy Caprice. A real sweet honey of a ride. I had purchased some plastic "chrome" looking hubcaps for it, because apparently that was a thing you did when you were a 17 year old virgin who listened to way too much Metallica and had never touched a boob before. I was out driving around, and I got a call on my newfangled cellular phone. It was one of those old school Nokia phones with the super obnoxiously loud analog style ring tones that you could hear three blocks away. It was my dads new girlfriend. She was panicked. Dad had gone out on the river that day, hours ago, and he still hadn't popped up at the end pick up point yet. She feared he may have had too much to drink and possibly drowned or hurt himself. I let out a long sigh, and knew that my last day of summer just got reeeeeaaaaal interesting. I proceeded to tell her that he was probably fine, and he would turn up eventually. After a long pause at the other end, she finally agreed, and she said she would go back down to Pictured Rocks to wait for him. A few hours tick by. Now it is later, probably 9 o'clock or so. I was at home, preparing myself for my senior year of high school. Another phone call. Dad's girlfriend again. Dad still isn't back yet. She has already called the police. I angrily hang up the phone, grab my little bro and hop in my Caprice and head down to Pictured Rocks, where there are a few sheriff deputies and some other folks, among them the owner of the canoe rental. We all start discussing possible scenarios about what may have happened to him. The policemen inform me they have a helicopter out looking for him downriver, and a few officers in a boat motoring down the river in hopes of finding him. At this point my brother and I are a little bit concerned, but still holding out hope that he probably passed out on a sandbar somewhere. A short while later, probably sometime around 10 PM and after a lot of waiting around(which is all Mike and I could really do anyway), we are approached by one of the officers. The helicopter has found my dad. He was on a sandbar. Had a nice fire going, and there he was, out cold. Passed out by the fire. Snoring away like a motherfucker. He was awoken by the chopper, and shortly after that more officers arrived in a boat. They tied onto his canoe with their boat, and towed him in. So there are my brother Mike and I, sitting down at the boat ramp at pictured rocks, and we see a boat, motoring towards us, our pappy close behind, with a smug, and satisfied look on his face. He was wearing his usual garb. Some sort of redneck off brand beer hat, a dress shirt with the sleeves cut off, and jeans that he cut off into "jorts". The man had impeccable style. Motherfucker was completely unfazed. Did not give a god damn that he had a few dozen cops, and family members out looking for him. As they pulled in, he slooooowwwwly lurched up out of his canoe, and says "Well goddamn. I got to tippin' that vodka bottle down my neck and found myself disorientated". Disorientated, This is what he told the cops. He then proceeded to tell Mike and I, and anyone else who would listen about how "goddamn annoyed he was with that motherfuckin' helicopter waking him up".  Then, I shit you not, he uncorks his cooler jug and takes a long hearty slurg from it, and caps it back up. The cops give him a stern lecture, and astonishingly, did not charge him with anything, bless their souls. I angrily told him to get in my fucking car and I drove him back home. Just another day in the life of Jeff Tjaden.